The vast majority of US enterprises is “wired” in the sense that almost all of the enterprise employees use computers, or at least have access to computers, and those computers are interconnected to form networks; the combination of these networks commonly called an intranet. Also, often, those computers and their networks include means for connecting to the Internet (public packet network).
In recent years the computer and communication networks have been linked through Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) applications, which facilitate incoming and outgoing call handling and control. CTI applications can be used to seamlessly interface the caller, the called party, and information on a host computer for a variety of applications. CTI applications deliver caller ID, automatic number identification (ANI), dialed number identification services (DNIS), and interactive voice response (IVR) dialed digits, such as a customer's account number, to a software application. CTI applications can also deliver request signals, such as “hold call” or “transfer call”, to a telephone system. Even complete faxes that are delivered to a telephone number belonging to the enterprise can be made to the screen of a computer in the enterprise's computer network.
In addition to the use of data networks in connection with CTI applications, IP telephony, where telephone calls traverse only the Intenet, has also advanced. Numerous patents have issued for IP telephones, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,449,269, and there are even commercially available IP telephones, such as the Polycom SountPoint IP 400 telephone made by Toshiba.
In a slightly different but related art, client/server computing has become prevalent over the past years. Distributed computing allows one machine to delegate some of its work to another machine that might be better suited to perform that work. For example, the server could be a high-powered computer, while the client is simply a desktop personal computer (PC). In some arrangements the files that are processed are stored in the server as well, and in still other arrangements, the executables (programs) in the host employ a virtual machine that employs the same instruction set as that of the client, so that files can be executed in both the network host and at the client machine. See, U.S. Pat. No. 6,003,065. An arrangement where files of a PC are stored in a network host so that they can be executed from a different remote location is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,363. An arrangement where files can be executed only in the network, and the client machine is reduced to a terminal is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 6,409,602.
Employees have become accustomed to the significant information handling capabilities of the combined communication and computing networks of enterprises, and various means have been developed to provide the same, or close to the same, capability for telecommuting employees through use of the Internet. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,404,874 describes a system for telecommuting employees. It includes a PBX, an enterprise computer network, and a Telecommute Server therebetween. When a call is received at the PBX that is destined to the office extension of an employee, the Telecommute Server checks whether the employee is logged into the computer network via the employee's office computer. If so, the assumption is made that the employee is at work, and the call is forwarded to the employee's office extension. When the telecommute server determines that the employee is logged in from the employee's home computer, the call is forwarded to the employee's home telephone. If the employee is found to not be logged into the computer network, the call forwarding is carried out in accordance with preselected, stored, instructions.
This patent does not deal with calls made by the telecommuting employee, or with computing access restrictions of the telecommuting employee when the employee is connected to the network from the employee's home computer. A more stringent situation presents itself in connection with consultants who are physically located remotely from the enterprise's communication and computing environments, and for whom it is desirable to provide access, but on a highly constrained basis; particularly to the enterprise's computing intranet.